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Sony Doing An End Run Around Its Own DRM
glassgnost writes "According to a story at CNN, Sony has an odd response to complaints from fans who have discovered they cannot import their CD content to an iPod. Individuals who complain to Sony BMG about iPod incompatibility are being directed to a Web site that provides information on how to work around the technology. In short, some labels appear to have been instructing customers how to defeat DRM -- which, IIRC, is a violation of DMCA." From the article: "For now, the copy-protected discs work only with software and devices compatible with Microsoft Windows Media technology. Apple -- the dominant player in digital music -- has resisted appeals from the labels to license its FairPlay DRM for use on the copy-protected discs. The DRM initiatives are generating complaints from fans, many of whom own iPods. The message boards of artist fan sites and online retailers are filled with complaints from angry consumers who did not realize they were buying a copy-protected title until they tried to create music files on their home computers."
If you tell someone how to circumvent the DRM to something in which you hold the copyright. The real question is, are you violating the DMCA if you are following those instructions to circumvent the DRM? And, if you are, would it be considered entrapment? None of this really matters since it would happen in the privacy of your own home, but it is an interesting legal riddle.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Even if that does violate the DMCA, only certain people would have standing to sue about it...mostly Sony. Anyone else getting a piece of the profits would, as well, but it's possible that their contracts surrender that particular right to sue to Sony. Also, the artists may be just as interested in Sony in getting around this particular manifestation of the law of unintended consequences, so they might not want to sue, either.
Of course, if the artists' contract required Sony to put DRM on there (maybe from an extremely anti-file-sharing artist like Madonna), then they would probably have a breach of contract action against Sony. I'm not sure it would succeed, but I'll bet it'd survive summary judgment.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
Since Sony wants a "proof-of-purchase" style form, has anyone with this issue completed the form, and received the response? It's be interesting to see how Sony is telling people to circumvent their technology.
:)
I'd fill it out myself, but it's been over a year since I bought any music that wasn't from iTunes.
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
I'd be interested to find out how many artists approve of DRM, and how many oppose it. Most of the names I see tossed about are has-beens, or never-heard-ofs -- I said most not all.
Seems to me that an artist would want their art spread as widely as possible, since most of their money is made in merchandising, and touring. Name recognition is everything.
My ZooLoo
The big media companies want DRM and supported the DMCA. Now they have to break the DMCA to get around their own DRM. Please support the EFF http://www.eff.org/.
Thanks,
cesman
When the source is open, the possibilities are endless.
Eh. So the website allows you to submit your email address so you can be mailed the instructions. That doesn't change the DMCA-violation charge at all. The website provides you the information by way of email. Just like Slashdot provides me my password if I forget by way of email. Is Sony violating the DMCA or not by telling you how to circumvent copy protection?
Personally, I'm glad Apple hasn't shared their FairPlay DRM scheme with the rest of the industry. It shows the RIAA what's like to be on the wrong side of a closed system. Now they know how we feel when we can't rip our songs to MP3s.
Electric Monkey Pants
Quoth the article: The DRM initiatives are generating complaints from fans, many of whom own iPods. The message boards of artist fan sites and online retailers are filled with complaints from angry consumers who did not realize they were buying a copy-protected title until they tried to create music files on their home computers.
Enter the DMCRA, which, in addition to guaranteeing the right to circumvent copy prevention systems for the purposes of making non-infringing use of a work, also mandates that when companies put copy prevention on a CD, they also add an adequate warning to the case indicating that the CD may not work in all players.
I didn't think that the DMCRA would actually get attention because of the warning label provision, mainly because I'm more interested on the circumvention for non-infringing use provision, but perhaps the warning label provision is the way to get music consumers interested in getting the DMCRA passed.
To listen to the music on this disc, you need a PC with the following minimum system requirements:
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- Logged in with Administrator rights
why?
Let's all try to stop using the term "copy protection". It's "copy prevention".
PLEASE click that link and tell Apple NOT to do ANYTHING SonyBMG wants them to! Turn this around and shove it up Sony's ass!
What I don't know I just fake...
Fairplay doesn't have the capability to expire songs once you stop paying for the subscription. WMA's Janus extension is required for this functionality, which has the player check that you are supposed to have access to those songs each time you plug it into your computer, and expires songs after a month if you don't let it verify. While this nasty little system works, it introduces requirements that some may find objectionable. Simply licensing Fairplay isn't going to get you access to subscription-based content. Basically, if you want subscription content on the iPod, you're SOL, but you should have known that when you bought it.
What's more interesting here is that Apple is turning down a potential revenue source (licensing Fairplay to CD distributors) for no other reason than what appears to be the belief that they have enough control over the digital music market to influence the direction of CD distribution as well. It seems they are making a stand to make copy-protected CDs impractical, hoping that distributors will instead keep producing standard CDs. Personally, I am very happy they are doing this, as copy-protected CDs are an incredibly stupid idea that only serves to inconvenience paying customers. I don't buy music from the big labels anymore, so I've never encountered copy protection, but you can be sure I would demand a refund if I was unable to use my purchased CDs as I see fit (within the confines of copyrights). Having Fairplay copies of the music on the CD as well wouldn't alleviate this problem, as I want to rip my CDs to MP3 format, in the bitrate of my choosing. In this case, Sony is clearly wrong, and they need to go back to making standard CDs if they want to sell to iPod users.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Actually, the correct term is not "copy prevention".
This does nothing to stop people who really want to copy anything.
The correct term is "bait and switch".
"Hey! Here's a Compact Disc containing high quality digital audio tracks of your favorite songs! PSYCH! IT INSTEAD ONLY LETS WINDOWS USERS HAVE CRAPPY, DRM-INFESTED WMA OR ATRAC FILES! AAAAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"
People that buy these CDs have been suckered.
And the circle of life continues to spin, occasionally wobbling on its axis thanks to the weighty presence of dumb.
For me, I quit buying Sony Consumer Electronics after I burned my first mix CD and found that my Sony CD/DVD player wouldn't read burned CDs. About 2 years later, the consumer electronics division is cutting 10,000 jobs and facing a $2B(US) loss this year.
Now the half of the house that sells CDs is trying hard to alienate it's customers by releasing CDs that can't be listened to on iPods. Earth to Sony, if you make your products unusable, consumers aren't going to buy them. In addition, the consumer economy is severely depressed due to energy prices and a really expensive war we are fighting in Iraq. Until these issues are resolved, consumers are going to spend less money on both electronics and content. Meanwhile, you probably shouldn't sacrifice the per CD licensing fees to the copy protection and DRM companies. Instead you should focus on superior products and profitability.
Selling products in a free-market economy is a tricky thing. Good luck! Oh, and one more thing. We are all sick of the movie remakes, please innovate something new and interesting. Herbie, Bewitched, and now King Kong? Geeeeeez.
So then get a recording of a support rep stating the web site, and then post it here for all to hear. One of us is an attorney, and will start a DMCA action.
Of course, the victim is Sony, so the attorney will have a difficult time getting their client's agreement to pursue. But if the caller asked, "So, does this work for this other CD I have?" And Sony's rep answers in the positive, then the manufacturer of "this other CD" might have grounds to sue. And if the caller worked for the (other) manufacturer, it'd be even easier to turn this into a DMCA-killer event.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Fair use is not a right. Fair use is an excuse (a legally acceptable one) to do things that are outside your rights. When you invoke fair use, you automatically admit that the infringement did occur (but you can't be punished for it). If you can get around stuff and fairly use it, more power to you. But nobody's helping you with fair use.
I hope you get modded all the way up, my friend. I worked in the music biz for a long, long time, and I have seen so many people getting screwed out of a reasonable reward for their actual "work" (meaning, reasonable rewards for learning their instruments, or writing songs, or engineering on a console)... just so the mob-run musician's "union" (what a joke, ask any musician)... or the greedy fucks that run the companies, and their lawyers, can live high off the hog. It makes me want to puke.
Duke Ellington..(I can hear it now..."Who????"), said, "The purpose of the music business is to sell booze." He was like a fucking saint, and he played clubs his whole life, and he said that over 50 fucking years ago!... Meaning: All this greedy bullshit on the part of the "majors" did not start with "napster', or anything like it.
The absolute best way for a musician to make anything like a real return on a lifetime of work, is to either sell a shitload of tee-shirts, on an endless tour, OR hope to fuck that one of his or her songs gets recorded by a big star, and sells like hotcakes (because the fraction of the songwriter's royalties, from the sales of the big star's version of the writer's tune, can't get grabbed by the label to payback against an 'advance', or inflated 'costs' associated with the writer's own original recording)...I am never giving another penny to those motherfuckers, ever.